Murder charges in 1969 Seaside cold case dismissed

Murder charges have been dropped against the man accused of killing a Seaside teenager in 1969, District Attorney Dean Flippo announced Wednesday.

James Terry Mason was 58 when he was arrested in Texas in October 2010 in the death of 19-year-old Christopher Lopes, who was fatally stabbed during a brawl Dec. 21, 1969, at the Del Monte Manor apartments at 1418 Yosemite St.

The District Attorney's Office charged Mason with murder based, in part, on testimony from an eyewitness who came forward earlier in 2010.

In September 2012, as the case was pending a jury trial, another witness went to Seaside police with new information. The witness, who was previously a suspect, implicated himself in Lopes' slaying, Flippo said.

"Based on the new information given to the Seaside detectives and the fact that the state of the evidence is contradictory, the District Attorney's Office is unable to proceed against Mr. Mason and is unable to prove who perpetrated the homicide beyond a reasonable doubt," Flippo said in a statement. "Because the case is over 40 years old and evidence has dissipated or is lost, it is impossible to forensically reconstruct the events and actions that led to Chris Lopes' homicide. Left are contradictory statements from witnesses about an event that occurred four decades ago."

Lopes' slaying would have been the oldest cold case in the county to be prosecuted, authorities said.

Seaside police detective Nick Borges began looking into the case in 2007. The first witness came forward in 2010 after the re-launch of the Monterey Peninsula Cold Case Project.

The information led Borges and another detective to Cedar Hill, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Mason lived in the state about 10 years, working as a shoe salesman.

Before that, he spent about 25 years living in Europe after serving two years in the Army.

Mason lived in Monterey at the time of Lopes' murder and his family owned a business in Seaside.